Sir Viv Richards: Windies fall is not just Lara's fault

Something has been lacking in this West Indies side. It's difficult to put my finger on exactly what has gone wrong but West Indies cricket is like a jigsaw puzzle with too many of the pieces not in place.

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Brian Lara has done the right thing in retiring from one-day cricket in the aftermath of Tuesday's defeat against South Africa and now the selectors have to think very carefully about whether he is the man to captain the side in the four-Test series in England this summer.

But it is too simplistic to believe that we could sack Lara and then everything would be all right. Problems run much deeper and the management of this side has to be called into question too.

I am not just disappointed with events on the field. There is no question that a lot of mistakes have been made off it too and there is a lot of finger pointing going on in the Caribbean over the poor attendances at the majority of the grounds.

The local people have been priced out of going to World Cup matches and I find that totally ridiculous. Someone somewhere has forgotten about the region where this event is being hosted and that is totally insulting to the indigenous people of the West Indies.

The ICC must take responsibility as must the local organising committees and the West Indies Cricket Board. The most successful sporting events are those where the prices are reachable for ordinary people and I have been very sad to see the magnificent new stadium that bears my name in Antigua less than full for all the games staged there.

But there has been some fantastic cricket played in this World Cup, in particular the wonderful match between England and Sri Lanka.

I was also absolutely delighted when Herschelle Gibbs hit six sixes in an over for South Africa against Holland so early on in this tournament.

When I launched the Johnnie Walker Six Hitting Challenge in this newspaper I never dreamt that we would be handing over a million dollars to charity so soon. After all, the feat had never been achieved in international cricket before and as an advocate of attacking batsmanship I was proud to be associated with the prize that Herschelle won.

Clearly, Australia, who are leading the Johnnie Walker Kings of the Boundary League with 204 boundaries in this tournament, are the team to beat in this World Cup and it will take a very good team to stop them winning again.

But there is a lot of exciting cricket still to come and we in the West Indies must overcome the disappointment of our own team now and enjoy the rest of the carnival on our doorsteps. And if anything can be done, even at this late stage, about the pricing policies then so much the better.

Sir Vivian Richards is an ambassador for the Johnnie Walker Know Your Boundaries responsible drinking campaign.